


There You Are

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (not really) - Freeform, Again, Almost Dying, BAMF Stiles, Coda, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, First Kiss, M/M, Mentioned Kate Argent, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Derek, Protective Stiles, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 18:53:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13219032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: It didn’t even occur to him to be surprised that Stiles was here. He was about five minutes from dying and riddled with bullets. Stiles being there, tugging him from his closet and whispering sharp orders into his ear between reporting into his comm--it felt inevitable.Like. Where the fuck else would Stiles be when he was dying.





	There You Are

He isn’t surprised by the sound of footsteps outside the warehouse. He’d picked up the annoying, distinctly federal issue tail about an hour after he passed the US Mexico border, headed north. 

He was chasing ghosts, and he fucking knew it, knew that the trail leading him to North Carolina was a trap. But he was in too deep to not chase it, so here he was, with his fucking faithful federal tagalong. 

Surveying the carnage, he had the passing hope that they didn’t decide today was the day they should knock past the distance they’d been keeping. He was pretty sure the FBI walking in on him standing over eleven corpses was going to be even harder to explain than why half his sister’s body was buried behind his burnt out childhood home. 

A tiny smile ticked up the corner of his lips, remembering  _ that _ particular conversation with Stiles’ father, which dovetailed neatly into thinking about--

He dug claws into his palms, forcing himself to count the heartbeats outside the warehouse--five, his trusty agents had picked up some friends--while he scanned the scene. 

The pack had been killed with a brutal efficiency that he recognized, even while he didn’t want to recognize it. The quick incapacitating slashing, the bullets and knife work mixed in with claws and fangs. 

He sighed, a tired thing. Some days he woke up and thought,  _ I could go back. I could be a person, be a part of the pack, could figure out what the hell is building with Stiles.  _

But then he’d catch a whisper, would follow a hint of a rumor, and there she was. Waiting, taunting, elusive. 

He sometimes wondered if his whole goddamn life was going to be him, dancing to Kate fucking Argent’s demented tune. 

He really hoped not. He was over the damn dance, and wanted a new partner. One with a smirk that was never cruel, whose eyes were never cold, whose long fingers held him safe where hers had always hurt him. 

He pushed to his feet, and started to turn, to slip into the darkness of the night. 

“ _ Derek Hale! Put down your weapons. Come out with your hands up.”  _

“Are you serious?” he muttered, more to himself than for the benefit of whatever idiot was out there bellowing into a megaphone. 

Almost like an answer, a metal canister crashed through a nearby window, clattering against the concrete ground and coming to rest against one of the dead ‘wolves. 

He cursed. Tear gas wasn’t going to  _ hurt _ him but it was fucking annoying. 

He could hear the agents shouting, and it hit him suddenly that they had been in a soundproofed vehicle--maybe a SWAT bus--and there is so many more than the five he’d first counted. 

There was one heartbeat that pounded out fast and determined and vaguely familiar, but he shook the thought, and the familiar rhythm and darted away from the shattered window, away from where the agents were about to storm the building. 

There was an exit near the back, and he’d have to give up the car--which pissed him off, he  _ liked _ that car--but it was a pretty clear shot to the woods. 

He pushed open the door and the night blew up in a hail of gunfire that rocked him back two steps before he put together what the fuck was happening. 

Shit. 

_ Shit.  _

“Eyes on,” someone shouted. 

“He’s hit, he’s hit, take him!” 

Derek snarled, his gums itching as his fangs lengthened, his claws gouging the metal door as he slammed it shut and shoved a bar to keep it closed. 

He could hear the rapid feet headed his way, and it clicked, sudden and inevitable. 

Kate laid this trap and he walked right into it and he was going to die here. There were too many dead bodies and too many trigger-happy federal agents, too much stacked against him. 

He stumbled up the steps and into a little closet, panting as his body healed over the bullets lodged in his chest, and had the absurd wish that one was a wolfsbane bullet. 

He didn’t want to be the reason the FBI figured out werewolves were a thing. He’d gotten enough people killed in his lifetime, he didn’t need to continue the dubious legacy after he died. 

And, dammit, he didn’t  _ want  _  to die. Not here. Not yet. He promised Cora he’d visit, he’d made these  _ plans _ to visit Peter. 

He wanted to kiss Stiles. 

Just once. Just--he needed to know what the boy tasted like, how his always moving mouth would feel against his own, how those long fingered hands would feel when he was gentle, when he wasn’t saving Derek’s life. 

He coughed and sighed. 

Maybe this was better. He wasn’t good for Stiles, it was half the reason he left with Braeden, when Stiles was so fucking young and watching him like he knew exactly what he wanted and was just waiting for Derek to figure it out. 

When he stopped smelling like pure want and started smelling like pack and home and  _ love.  _

Derek didn’t need to stay and fuck the kid up more than he already had, didn’t need to give in to the offer Stiles was putting out, because he  _ wanted  _ to and what Derek wanted usually had a way of coming back and biting him on the ass. 

So he bolted, and he hated himself for it, even though he knew it was for the best, was what Stiles  _ needed.  _

That familiar rhythm is ticking along at the edge of his awareness and he let a smile tug at his lips, because he’d placed it, where he knew it from. 

It sounded, impossibly, like Stiles, but older, like life had worn away the too young and impatient excitement.  It sounded  _ right.  _ Settled. More confident. 

It sounded like everything he knew Stiles would grow up to be and he gasped a breath, wishing he could be there to see it. 

The door creaked open and a familiar, exasperated voice huffs. “There you are.”

Derek blinked at him. Stiles looked--fuck. 

He looked amazing. Lean and muscular, wrapped up in a bullet-proof FBI vest, sweaty and grinning at him like a fucking maniac. 

It didn’t even occur to him to be surprised that Stiles was here. He was about five minutes from dying and riddled with bullets. Stiles being there, tugging him from his closet and whispering sharp orders into his ear between reporting into his comm--it felt inevitable. 

Like. Where the fuck else would Stiles be when he was dying. 

He swallowed down that irrational thought and let the younger man lead him out of the warehouse. 

Later, he’d be asked about it. By Lydia, by Scott, by Rafa--hell even the Sheriff asked and that was by far the worst, because the knowing gleam in his eyes when Derek shrugged helplessly made him blush and fidget and Stiles swoop in with an  _ oh my god, Dad, it was traumatic, give him a break. _

But in the moment. In the swirl of tear gas and shouting, in the sound of gunfire and  _ where the fuck is he? _ \--there wasn’t a whole lot that made sense except for the grip Stiles had on his arm, bruisingly tight and reassuring and pulling him along behind him out of that damn warehouse. 

He dumped Derek into a plain, unmarked black sedan, one that Derek thought might have been his too obvious Federal friends car, if the faint scent and mountain of fast food wrappers was any indication, and then jogged around sliding into the driver’s seat. 

“How?” he asked, and Stiles sent him a toothy grin that felt as familiar as home. 

“Come on, big guy. It was my turn, right?” he gave Derek a small smile, like saving each other's lives was just what they did. 

Maybe because it was. It always had been. 

Derek nodded, and Stiles launched into a easy ramble, about what led him from Beacon Hills and to this point, and he listened, the way he listened to everything Stiles said, but it was a damn good thing no one was expecting a report at the end of it, because all that he could hear was Stiles’ heartbeat, steady and familiar and near. 

They pulled into a gas station after thirty minutes and Derek followed him into the dirty bathroom, held himself still as Stiles sliced into his chest and dug out the bullet wounds, buried his groan in the boy’s hair when he was done and Stiles’ arm wound around his waist, holding him up. When he could breath through the pain, he pushed back a little and Stiles gave him a curious stare. Assessing. 

“Kate set that up?” he asked and Derek nodded. 

“There’s something happening at home,” Stiles said. “I think Gerard’s apart of it.”

The odds of Kate going to her father when she was a shifter were pretty fucking slim, but then, the odds of Kate being changed by having her throat slashed were slim too and look at where they were with  _ that.  _

“Trial was pointing towards Canada,” Derek said. 

“There’s a car,” he nodded at the lot. “For you. You’ve got a bag in the back. With a cell phone.” 

He could go. Could keep chasing the demons of his past.

Could keep dancing to Kate’s fucking tune. 

Or…

“Think I could get a ride to Beacon Hills with you?” he asked. 

Stiles gave him this tiny pleased smile, and nodded. 

Fuck it. 

He stepped across the tiny bathroom, into Stiles space and kissed him. 

Because he almost died and Stiles was there. 

Because he was going home and Stiles was there. 

Because he wanted this more than anything he’d wanted ever and  _ Stiles was there.  _

Meeting him every step of the way, growling into the kiss, biting at his mouth, his nails digging into Derek’s hair and shoulders, a sharp stinging fight for the upper hand that made Derek  _ ache _ . He recognized it because it was everything they were, everything they had ever been. 

He kissed Stiles because he wanted too, because he’d always wanted to, because he couldn’t imagine going another moment without kissing Stiles. 

When he pulled away, Stiles made a noise, softly complaining, and Derek smiled. Rubbed his finger over the boy’s swollen lower lip. 

It was dirty and they were bloody and smelled like tear gas and they would probably almost die again before the week was over and it was fucking perfect, exactly where he wanted to be. He inhaled Stiles scent and let his heartbeat settle, match Stiles’ steady rhythm of home and family. 

“There you are,” he murmured. 

 


End file.
